A 30-megawatt (MW) battery to bolster South Australia's power supply network is to be built on Yorke Peninsula, west of Adelaide.

Under the project, which is expected to cost about $30 million, power network provider ElectraNet will design, build and own the battery, which will be located at the existing Dalrymple substation, north of Yorketown.

ElectraNet will lease the battery to an energy retailer, and the Federal Government, which will contribute up to $12 million via the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, said the battery was expected to be operating by next February.

In recent weeks, several federal ministers have played down SA's efforts to bolster its power supply reliability.

Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said, at the time the Jamestown 100MW battery project was announced, it was "a small announcement in terms of some of the challenges South Australia faces by having such a high penetration of wind and solar".

Mr Frydenberg and SA's Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis were in Whyalla today for the official announcement of the Dalrymple venture.

Mr Frydenberg said the battery would help secure a "weak point" in the state's energy system.

"That is an insecure part of the network," he said.

"The nearly 5,000 households and 500 businesses in that area can lose power and we need to ensure that not only they have the reliability themselves but that the whole network doesn't lose power as a result of a particular weak point."

Mr Koutsantonis said it came as a surprise to him that the Federal Government was embracing the latest battery venture.

"It certainly is, especially given the amount of ridicule Scott Morrison, the Prime Minister and Josh Frydenberg himself heaped on a 100MW battery," he said.

Covering nearly one-third of the continent, in deserts with poor soils, humble Australian spinifex grasses contain nano-sized particles that can amp the performance of a range of everyday items, researcher Nasim Amiralian writes.

Former treasurer Wayne Swan says that real private sector wages have grown by just 1 per cent under the Abbott and Turnbull governments, which he says equates to only one year of growth under the previous Labor government.